On Karma…..On Duty…….On God

Just wanted to share a few thoughts I've on God n religion. I'm not a good writer and I hardly know how to write on a specific topic. In fact, I always mess with the start, body and the end of it. Sometimes starts with the conclusion itself. Just like my unedited film reel in which the first shot may be the climax.

I remained an atheist for nearly four years, since my seventh standard to the tenth coz by then I was completely thrown apart by the Hindu epics and stories I read. It was quite a shock to my dad and mom who are very much from Hindu orthodox families. In spite of their compulsion I haven’t visited any of the temples during that period. I never prayed for anything. I hardly felt the need.

Since my childhood I was been a dedicated reader of Hindu ‘puranas’ and epics. I was very much fascinated by the super heroes and read them the same way I read the ‘Tarzans’ and the ‘Phantoms’. At the stage of adolescence I loved reading about the beautiful angels or ‘Apsaras’ in those books. And hence by the time I started analyzing them intellectually, I found them so fake and funny, there by losing interest completely. Added to that, the massacres and riots in the name of religion made me feel that it is just one among those tools designed by humans, for butchery and brutality. I decided not to believe in God anymore and there I discovered the atheist in me.

Now back to my tenth standard…One day my mother called me and told me not to believe in Rama, Krishna or any other 'Gods'. That was the biggest shock treatment from her side. She then she added, “You don’t have to believe God in any of them. But just think about the reason for your existence in this world. Also think about the power that made u exist in this world. I just want you to realize that there is some power that makes us alive…that is around you….that is inside you...that you can find in anything and everything. We call it God.” That statement brought me back to the study of religion and God.

Instead of reading epics, I tried more on the history of the epics and its origin. It was nice to understand about the Vedic era, much before the Epic era. More over it was interesting to know that Vedas and their supporting books ‘Upanishads’, had never used the name of any God. They described God as ‘OM’ or ‘Brahma’. Both symbolized the same ‘Power of nature’, about which my mother told me. I heard from someone that ‘OM’ is the sound of the rotation of earth. I believe in that, since that statement is from the same saints of Hinduism who discovered the powers of nature- even the sun and the planets much before Galileo saw them clearly through his telescope. We had the power of Yoga and we knew that nothing is superhuman and everything is very much human. Yogic power can bring out the current or electricity in you and hence make you bring out that power called God in you.

Now what epic is was the biggest question in front of me. Only after seeing Stephen Spielberg’s ‘Jurassic Park’, I came to know that there was some animal called dinosaur that ruled the earth much longer than the period the first man was evolved though evolution, to this moment you are reading this write-up. Now epics are dummy material like Spielberg’s dinosaurs, created by the new age Brahmins for common man to understand God. Moreover the then ‘King worship’ in India supported the human Gods to arise through those epics. The biggest mistake of Hinduism is its cast system. I don’t know how many people know that nobody can be a Brahmin by birth. The word Brahmin itself means ‘The one who knows Brahma’- means one who knows that super power of nature called ‘Brahma’ or ‘OM’ or ‘the God’ in simple English. For our convenience we created casts and religions and made it hereditary. It is just like the son of an aged popular Bollywood star becoming the next superstar…

In fact, Hinduism is not a religion. It’s the society. It was Afghanis who did the nomenclature of that particular human civilization who lived on the shore the Sindhu River as ‘Hindus’. They wanted to called them ‘Sindhus’, but failed to do so coz they didn’t have the alphabet ‘Sa’, and hence that word came out as ‘Hindus’. In that way a Hindu is a born Hindu. He don't have to be made Hindu. And hence true to what Hinduisam says, a Hindu has the privilage of worshiping God in any form...feel God in anything and everything created by God.

Presents of a camel can be felt by the hoove marks on desert. Sameway the presents of that supreme soul can be felt in all creations, including you and me. In fact, we are not two. We are one. Both of us came from the same soul. That's what 'Advitha' concept of Shankracharya tells. God is the soul in us and body is the medium. And hence a true Hindu should accept Jesus as well as Budha.

If God is the ‘Power’, that is the reason for u being ‘Real’…. 'Original', religion is just the social set-up man created for his security. Just like any other human invention, religion also needs to be updated with time. As the society changes, its need also change from time to time and hence this social setup also need to be restructured with time. Not only Hinduism, but that is exactly what any other religion should do. In short, man should understand man and he should live to his needs.

As Swami Vivekananda said “God is ‘Karma’ (service)”. He took this statement from Veda. ‘Karma’ is not charity; it is your simple duty. Now I prefer doing that. Do what you think you are made for. Today I do pray. I pray to the symbols like Hindus as well as I pray to the free space like Muslims. I pray to the cross and all the powers of the nature. My pray is my ‘Karma’, my duty- my music- my travel- my film. I’ve a feeling that I’m made for that and I’m not good for anything else.

Today morning a friend of mine messaged me ‘Arun, God bless your heart’. And I wanted to reply
“Yaar….I’m already blessed with so many things. So I’m not looking forward to any more blessings. I’m happy that I’m blessed with two eyes to see, a tongue to talk, legs to walk and a hand to write. But I understood the actual use of it very recently when someone saw the same thing I saw….when someone listened to what I was talking…..when someone walked with me……….and when you had the patience to read me fully.”